Extensions to our little fountain pen nut house on the digital prairie

Have you ever wondered about the skin we're using as the main board skin, and what ever happened to the old one, that nice paler blue and cream one, which was easy to read, with distinct differences between pinned topics and normal topics in each forum?

Well, we were stuck with this because it was the new Invision default skin, while the other was the old Invision default skin, and not compatible with later versions of the software. That essentially gave each of us just the following options:

A) IP.Board default skin

IP.Board Mobile skin

Or

C) Lo-Fi skin

And each of the latter two skins are rather limited of course, due to the fact that they cater really for as simple forum access as possible.

You could, and still can, change the skin used to display the board by scrolling down to the bottom of any page, f.e., like this:

And right underneath the birthdays you'll find the skin selection box (red arrow), with just next to that the button with the downwards pointing triangle (blue circle and arrow). Clicking on this would present you with the three options ilustrated above:

Resulting in the above dropdown and selection list. Just click on either, and that determines how your FPN experience is.

Well, not being all that happy about these options, we decided to build a few extensions to our little digital nut house, make it look small from the outside, but extend it to a mansion from within . The rebuilding is more or less complete, so we would like to introduce to you a few new rooms and spaces, besides IP.Board, IP.Board Mobile, and Lo-Fi. There may still be a few hiccups here and there, as happens when extending a house, and of which we are aware, mostly, but we didn't want to keep these from you any longer regardless.

Therefore, let me present to you our new extensions:

1) The Library - a room (skin) with the luxurious feeling of brass, wood paneling and leather, in marvelous shades of green, brown, cream and yellow copper, with an occasional red highlight.. This room is where you may find admins and moderators alike when they are relaxing after a hard day of moderating and administering .

2) The Vault - very much a technically oriented room, in the basement of the nut house, the place where we keep our server and software, where technical stuff resides. No distractions there, except for a few flashing lights.

3) The Zen Retreat - you can almost hear the grasshoppers chirping away here, while emptying your thoughts in a most pleasant and peaceful green-tinted environment with lovely paper lampshades and bamboo twigs all over the place.

5) The Hangar - a high tech blue tinted place where we store our Virtual Space Exploration machinery, and any other transportation equipment we need on our treks.

6) The Pebble Garden - This ornamental stone garden in colours and textures is tingling with the (almost) sound of small brooks, taking one away on those dreams of beautiful skies and beaches somehow in the confines of a space feeling very secure.

7) The Pink Pavillion - This is the place to go in order to get this summer feeling again, looking through a window frame from the pavillion, and getting enraptured by the rich green and pink colours of all that is in flower and bloom at the glorious height of summer time.

Well, so far our extensions here. Why don't you join us in one of these new rooms and places?

Try them out for yourselves, by scrolling down to the bottom of this page, and select any of these places (skins) from the drop down list you'll find there, the new extended one that is.

Enjoy!

Warm regards,Wim

On behalf of the admin and moderator team

P.S.: Guests, i.e., those not signed in, will only benefit from 1 additional skin, namely Vault.

Thank you, they're very nice, now I have another decision to make (probably will change my mind every day ).Just one suggestion--in the Library, Vault and Zen, I'd suggest that the forum names be in a larger or bolder font if possible--just as they are in the other skins. Make them a bit easier to spot. Great work!

Wim, et al.,Thanks for the welcome treat of new skins, and for all the hard work and time you and the other elves put in.As I looked over the new rooms, I started thinking not only about which one(s) I would settle into, but also about which ones some of the Forumites I know would like.All in all, a nice new dimension to this diversion.Joe

Thank you moderators for all the time and effort you put in to our forum to make it better each time! I'm on my way to find the way in our new pen nut house to see which room will get a first stop....I think I'm heading for the library.

Hi Wim,My compliments on the skins! I sure makes working on this board a lot more attractive. It was a lot of fun already to be on FPN, but now it's... wow! :clap1:I am trying them all!Thanks for the hard work!